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posted by martyb on Thursday November 01 2018, @06:49AM   Printer-friendly
from the against-my-will dept.

tl;dr: Directing the wind is not possible, being compelled to adjust my sails. How can I transition to Windows 10 and not suffer extreme loss in productivity.

Windows Classic Theme: How do I get something like this. I assume other Soylentils are like me and the first thing they do when logging onto a Windows XP/7 computer is change the theme to classic. Has anyone done this yet on Windows 10? In my very brief experience dealing with 10 I was unable to find a way to do this, I presume that they removed this because they are awful people.

Specifications: How powerful of a computer do I need to do the same thing I am currently able to do without any lag. I was compelled to do testing using an i7 laptop with 8gb of ram from a couple of years ago, I found I was unable to do any testing because it was bogged down at 95% CPU capacity just running the base OS. What should I be running to make this thing bearable. My job function is to review, build, maintain reports which can involve files large enough to bog me down on my current system (i7-5600U with 8gb), what hardware should I have, how much ram should I have.

Experience: What lessons did others here learn the hard way as they went though this process. I am aware of the updates causing data to be non exist and things of that nature. What are things that I need to know about in this new age of 10.

I am sure there are some other things I should ask, just can't remember ATM.

Just run Linux XD: I am not allowed to withdraw consent from Windows 10, but I am pushing off implementation as long as possible.

[For information about issues with Windows' updates, see Ask Woody. --Ed]


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Immerman on Thursday November 01 2018, @03:30PM

    by Immerman (3985) on Thursday November 01 2018, @03:30PM (#756478)

    There's much I don't like about Windows 10, but with a few tweaks I find aspects of the interface growing on me. My biggest tweaks:

    Start Menu nee Desktop -
    Don't waste your time digging through the program list unless you *really* need to. It's abysmal. Instead, hit the windows key and start typing to search

    First remove all the useless tiles (right-click each and choose unpin) - tedious, but we can use the space *much* more effectively
    Now, pin all the programs you would normally make desktop shortcuts to onto the start menu (right-click and choose "pin to start"
    Then organize those shortcuts into groups - they're all in the same group by default, drag one to an empty place on the menu to create a new group.
    Add titles to groups if desired (title-bar appears if you hover at the top of the group)
    Resize the "start menu" to be as large as possible (drag the corner) - and optionally under "start settings" in the control panel you can also turn on "show more tiles" to make groups 4 wide instead of 3
    Re-arrange shortcuts within groups as desired - they snap to a half-size grid so you have a little artistic freedom. You can also right-click individual shortcuts to make them half-sized with no title - handy for calculator, notepad, etc. where an unlabeled icon is sufficient.

    Now all your desktop program shortcuts are neatly organized, available at the touch of a button, and won't get mixed in with all the other crap that inevitably ends up on the desktop.

    Recent documents -
    Win10 pretty much killed the recent documents list in favor of Quick Access and the per-program recent/frequent item menus, but you can get it back better than ever.
    Open the file Explorer, andin the navbar enter %Appdata%\Microsoft\Windows
    Right-click the "Recent Items" folder, and pin to start - that folder contains shortcuts to the last *many* files and folders accessed - mine currently contain 149 items going back 3 months, making it similar to a web browser history list.
    Open folder and sort by date modified, with most recent first. It's the modification date of the shortcut, rather than the file, so recently-read but unmodified items will still appear at the top

    File search -
    This isn't really anything win10 specific, but if you've ever gone hunting for a file accidentally saved in the wrong place (or just somewhere you can't remember), you want this

    Download and install Everything.exe from voidtools.com. Be sure to install it as a service so that it can keep it's index up to date without having to regularly scan the entire hard drive (it monitors the NTFS filesystem journal to keep up with changes - new files are usually searchable within seconds of creation).

    When opened (after the first time, when it has to build the index from scratch) you're instantly presented with a list of *every* file on your computer (except those in excluded drives or folders) - mine currently shows over 1.8 million entries, and yes, I can scroll through all of them seamlessly, but that's not the point.
    Start typing in the search bar at the top, and the list is instantly filtered to show only the files whose name contains the word fragments you type. Two or three three-letter sequences will usually narrow the list to only a handful of files from which you can easily pick the one you were looking for.

    For example - if I wanted to find "August 2018 financial report.xls" I'd type "fin aug 18". Or maybe "fin .xls" if I wanted to browse all financial excel files, no matter where they are on the computer.
    It only searches file names, but it does so instantly. It works pretty well out of the gate, and gets better fast as you get used to giving your files longer names with more keywords/tags in them.

    It's incredible enough that I even use it in WINE on Linux, where I've found nothing comparable. Though on Linux it has to resort to periodic file system scans to keep the index updated. I rarely ever use Explorer to find files anymore, except when I'm working on a project involving a bunch of different files all grouped into the same folder(in which case it's a fair bet I use Everything to find the folder)

    Seriously - if anyone knows anything comparable for Linux proper, *please* let me know. The critical parts are that it must find the files *instantly*, and do so *while* I'm typing - I can't overstate how big a difference that makes. Even a 1-second delay, or having to hit "enter" before the search starts, cripples one of it's greatest strengths - the fact that I can just keep typing until the file list is short enough to easily spot what I'm looking for. (Using the filesystem journal to keep the index updated without having to re-scan the hard drive is also incredibly nice, but I could live without it)

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